“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

The day didn’t exactly start off with a bang. It was more like a whimper and a moan.

My phone featured a totally black screen when I reached for it by the bedside table. No amount of restarting or googling tutorials on how to fix this flaw brought about much success.

This minor, first-world melodrama followed a troubled night where sleep was evasive and spotty at best. My foggy, befuddled thinking wasn’t improving with the prospect of going out to purchase a new phone and managing all the inconveniences it would entail.

Interspersed with all this was the nagging sensation that the specific outcome I desired to see accomplished in the meeting taking place across town would not materialize. High-powered performers were getting their own way. Justice was nowhere in sight. The back-handed resolution was turning out to be a million miles from my liking.

Down in the dumps and fighting fatigue, I drooped around the work projects plastered across the computer screen. Keep going. Keep trying. Keep making things happen. Yet all the time I felt as if nothing was unfolding the way it should.

I was minutes away from canceling the appointment my friend had set up the previous day. We had decided on a walk on the beach in the afternoon, and now the prospect of going outside or being pleasant or making conversation seemed beyond all rational behavior.

But I went. I strapped on walking sandals and grabbed my dark glasses. Maybe she wouldn’t notice the ache if I concealed my eyes with them.

My friend asked gentle questions before the car ever left the parking lot. She listened carefully to what I said and responded as if she was reading my heart from the inside out. I unburdened the heaviness I had carried all day like a harassed airline passenger dropping off her cumbersome, overweight luggage.

We walked for an hour, the sunlight skipping on the waves, the waves smoothing out the wrinkles on the sand, the saltwater splashing across our feet. The breeze whispered against our faces, and the conversation carried me someplace I desperately needed to go.

That afternoon I heard more music than most orchestras ever create.

Elizabeth A Mitchell

Photo Credit: Herman Io on Pexels